I’m not good with long-term projects. I like to get things done and move on. But, lately I’ve been receiving some pressure to wait until spring 2010 to have the wedding–even from my fiance. I wanted to set an October 2009 date. A nice, fall wedding would be lovely. An eight month engagement would be okay, ten months tolerable, but that lands in the middle of winter and I would prefer either fall or spring. I can’t imagine being engaged 13 months! It seems like a waste of time, being "half-married" for so long! Seven months sounds MUCH more reasonable.

I’m 29, he’s 31, we live together, we’re both established in our careers, so why wait? Contrary to the WIC opinion, planning a wedding in six-months is totally do-able. Six months is a long time!

On the other hand, my folks (who are a whole can of worms on to themselves) think I want to push up the wedding date because they think I’m pregnant. Apparently the thought of a six-month engagement is just that foreign to them…!)

I know there are a lot of you out there with super long engagements like mine. My question is, how on earth have you been surviving all of this? Have you wanted to just "get it over with?" I mean, we got engaged one month ago and I am already kind of "done" with this whole engagement thing–what’s an entire year going to be like? Gaa!

I’d like a spring wedding, but would prefer it to be this spring–like, in, say a month.

I have been engaged since December 06, our wedding will be in December 09. I guess I was never in a rush to get married in the first place, even after he asked me, so it really wasn’t a big deal of waiting. There was too much pressure on us to do it right after we got engaged but to be honest, we just waited until the time to actually have a wedding felt right. It feels right now.

Like you we also live together. I guess I don’t see it as an issue of being half-married because we have been together for so long. I just don’t think the paper will change anything even though people think it will- except for the fact that our car insurance will go down. Yay!

I got engaged on New Year’s Eve ’07/’08, and we’re getting married in two weeks, so that’s almost a month engagement. We also live together, own a house together, we’re really young etc… so there wasn’t a huge rush to get married. Also, we ended up planning the whole wedding in only 7 months (we didn’t start until November) so planning a wedding in only a few months is definitely do-able.

I think the length of the engagement is really individual to each couple. We chose to wait for several reasons, including financial and career-related. If you don’t have any reason to wait, I say don’t! I really enjoyed being engaged, but I can totally see why it might be frustrating for someone else. Just think about what you and your Fi want, and ignore the snarky comments (really? is pregnancy the only reason for a wedding nowadays?)

Wedding: August 2009 - St. Thomas of Villanova Church & the F.U.E.L. House

We got engaged in November 2007 and by the time we’re married this August, we’ll have been together for over eight years! The long engagement was great, because we had first pick for most of our big vendors, and were able to take a planning break before starting up again!

Simtimes I feel like I would love to me married this fall. We have been engaged since December 08′ and are getting married June of 2010. We chose to get married next yr to have more time to plan, to be able to stretch our dollar a bit by finding great deals, getting our venue at a great rate and b/c we needed a lil more time to save. If we were planning to have a smaller wedding (like 50 people) then we would have definately done it this fall. In the end I know i’ll be happy I waited when I see all the planning and hard work but I am not a patient person so I know at times it will drive me nuts….

I would say if you want a wedding now…then have a wedding now. But a longer engagement makes it a more relaxing time to plan. Not having to run around trying to book everything and find everything you really want. I found a gown I really want and Im trying to locate a sample…and Ive called 4 places so far who dont have it. And since we are now 1 yr till our wedding I still have time to find it. We got engaged last July and our wedding is Next April. We are both big procrastinators and need time to save money as well. We have the venue booked, the photography and the DJ, but there is still a lot to do! Good luck and I hope you just go with your heart…and first start with a plan, go to sites like Brides.com or TheKnot.com where they can give you a budget list and you can see everything that is needed for a wedding…more or less to your own style.

I will be engaged 3 years almost to the day. The long engagement had to do with saving money (which we didnt save a whole lot anyway) and there just not being any rush. We live together, and decided to wait until it was good for the schedule. Even though we had a long engagement, the nuts and bolts of planning and booking didn’t really start to happen until about 9 months before. Though, remember that a lot of venues book up to a year in advance if you want a specific date.

We got engaged this past NYE and always knew we’d have a summer wedding. We both love summer, and I teach (and will be in grad school next year) so it’s pretty much the only season that made sense in terms of time off.

I am kinda loving it though. First pick of vendors! And we’re getting loads done now so that (hopefully? maybe?) the end stretch won’t be stressful. Plus we can chip away at the payments.Of course, we may become impatient by this time next year. We’ve only just begun.

Maybe instead of thinking of yourself as "half-married" you could try to embrace the idea of being "afianced" and have fun with it? Like you can say, "my fiaaaaaaaaannncee" as many times a day as you can since you’ll never be able to do it again!

I totally understand where you are coming from! when we originally got engaged, in reality I wanted to go to the JOP…we’re both 29 (about to be 30) and I didn’t understand the wait…we’ve been together 7 years, lived together for 4 of those years, have combined finances, etc…money wasn’t an issue (if we decided to do a big wedding…which is what we’re ending up doing) so it wasn’t like we needed to "save up" either…I was sooo frustrated that FI wanted to wait…when we get married we would have been engaged for almost a year and a half! most of my friends who got engaged after me have already had their weddings so that was a source of frustration as well…but I’ve soldiered through it and now we’re a little more than 4 months from the date! It depends on how fast you are, but I totally planned the wedding in about 6 months…3 for research and another 3 to book everything…

We got engaged in October 2009, and will be getting married in December 2010. I did the bulk of the planning almost immediately and it was really nice being able to pick my photographer, DJ, venue, etc. without worrying about them already being booked. It’s also nice that I don’t have to stress about whether things will be done on time. The downside (my fiance pointed this out to me) is that now I have TOO much time to think about the nitpicky details…enough time to become obsessed with things I don’t really need, like personalized matchbooks. I think I’m probably spending more money than I would have if we’d had a shorter engagement. Plus, I AM ready to just get married! But, as the above poster suggested, I’m also trying to enjoy the one time in my life I’ll be a fiancee. I’m enjoying wearing my e-ring all by itself, looking at wedding blogs and seeing all the amazing, creative things other ladies are doing, and talking to people about weddings and marriage. It’s somehow a better conversation starter to be engaged than married! People like to tell you all about their wedding, their parents’ wedding, their thoughts on marriage, etc.

Perhaps you should start looking at venues (or photographers or DJs, whatever is really important to you). You might find that your heart is so set on a particular place (or person), that you want to set the date around that.

We haven’t even set a date, although everyone is pushing for it. We just got engaged in December (08). Although we could go to JOP, neither of us are really in a rush. Even though we probably won’t get married til summer 2010, I consider this a great way to plan at my leisure. I’m very indecisive, but a perfectionist too, and I need plenty of time to mull over ideas.

FI refuses any ideas that don’t involve the beach and summer weather, so that’s about all I have planned. And there’s no way I was going to stress myself out by having less than a year to plan even the simplest of weddings.

We already own a home, both have good jobs, and don’t plan on having kids in the next few years. So I kind of consider myself lucky to have the "engaged" time that we will have.

I was having some serious problems with my family and the wedding location. It got really bad, and I couldn’t imagine dealing with this for over a year. So, we pushed up the wedding date. Thankfully, though, yesterday my mom whole-heartedly apologized for being unreasonable and I’ve feeling better about the situation. (Long story short — my parents wanted to plan the wedding for us, 300 miles from where my FI and I live, without my or my fiance’s input. They even "took away" the money they had "given" us and said that the groom’s family wasn’t important–a wedding is for the bride’s family. There was also crying and guilt trips involved. Y e a h…)

So I’m feeling better and I’m feeling better about a longer engagement.

I was engaged on 12/25/08 and we are getting married on 6/6/09. I just didn’t want to be one of those people who waited over a year. For some that is great but I’m a do it and get it done type of person. Plus, if you want to get married in the first place, why not go ahead and do it?